The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

No Age – Fever Dreaming

Honestly, what is it with bands and imaginary forts lately?…



[Video][Myspace]
[6.12]

Chuck Eddy: I still own a copy of Nouns that came in the mail three years ago. Not exactly sure why — maybe I just thought the booklet looked cool. (Okay, just checked what I wrote back then: “Their muffled and mostly arrhythmic tune-and-blur feels like indie-rock nostalgia: for the sweet glory days of Pavement or Dinosaur Jr., maybe, or the teenage-riot days of Sonic Youth.” Then stuff about the creeps in “Teen Creeps,” which had “halfway comprehensible words,” reminding me of the creeps in the Bush Tetras’ “Too Many Creeps.” Plus, yep, I liked the CD packaging.) Anyway, this yowl is sufficiently pleasant, too. But it’s also the same old shit.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: Punky guitar with some energy and added screeching, yelled lyrics, energetic drumming, plenty of noise, but more than evoking punk or Sonic Youth or even Spacemen 3, I kept hearing it like a more conservative and weaker version of great Japanese noise duo Afrirampo. That’s still not a bad thing to resemble, but this doesn’t quite hook me.
[5]

Jer Fairall: Surfer Rosa-worthy guitar noise, particularly with that great nails-on-blackboard screech, but one imagines that the Pixies would have brought this in at about half the length and with twice the melodic punch.
[6]

Alfred Soto: In a song that’s itself one giant hook, the inhuman shriek coursing throughout resonates like good Mission of Burma. Space, dynamics, length — these guys have thought them through.
[8]

Frank Kogan: Feels underrecorded, which makes it sound genuinely archival, like a bit o’ cheap bash-it-out ’77 pushed into a tight little song, the hook a high scream that could emanate from either a guitar or a voice. Track loses its way when the chords get exploratory, ends up a minute longer than necessary; but overall some good fuzz ‘n’ grind from the old memory book.
[7]

Josh Love: I dig the fact that feedback (seemingly swiped from Nirvana’s “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”) fulfills the function of a hook here, and the song as a whole has a great barrelling momentum. Still, can’t help but feel like the bottom-of-a-well recording quality is an affectation they could’ve done without.
[6]

Zach Lyon: It’s hard to make punk music that sounds like it’s going out of its way to be boring. Good job!
[5]

Alex Ostroff: “Fever Dreaming” is a repetitive, noisy racket. This is a good thing. The vague screaming/squealing noise that crops up every twenty seconds or so makes me want to fling myself around the room like a madman. This is also a good thing.
[7]

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